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Now Boarding: Terror Takes to the Skies in these Airplane-Set Horror Films

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airplane-set horror

Flying is never easy. Let’s be honest, it’s a total nightmare, and who knows when it’ll be safe to travel again. From turbulence to screaming babies, flying is like a horror film, and the genre has capitalized on the horrors of flight. These five airplane-set horror films full of snakes, zombies, ghosts, and death itself will have you rethinking your next flight.

Snakes on a Plane (2006)

 

Like Indiana Jones said, “Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?”  Snakes on a Plane is the ultimate airplane-set horror film–a high-octane thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Escorting a witness, FBI agent Neville Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson) boards a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles. But this is no ordinary transfer as an assassin releases a crate of deadly snakes on the plane to kill the witness. Flynn and the rest of the passengers must band together if they want to survive the lethal attack.

Managing to be both fun and scary, Snakes on a Plane has exactly what you would expect from a movie like this. For being more of a B movie, the film still manages to get under your skin with some unnerving sequences of snakes slithering in between the aisles, underneath seats, falling from compartment heads, and biting and latching onto their victims. Outlandish, and not for the faint of heart, Snakes on Plane is an all-around good time filled with B-movie madness.

Flight 7500 (2014)

Something mysterious is happening on flight 7500. From the director of The Grudge, Takashi Shimizu, comes a terrifying thrill ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

In the film, flight 7500 departs from Los Angeles International Airport bound for Tokyo. As the overnight flight makes its way over the Pacific Ocean during its ten-hour flight, the plane suffers turbulence resulting in a passenger suddenly dying. Unbeknownst to the rest of the passengers, a supernatural force is unleashed, slowly taking the passengers one by one.

The atmosphere is one of the highlights of the film as Takashi Shimizu crafts a moody, claustrophobic ghost tale. Flight 7500 is virtually a haunted house film set on a plane. Shimizu uses Japanese horror elements such as long, dark corridors and ghosts lurking in the background. You won’t find any long-haired ghost girls on this flight, however, as Shimizu uses the themes of death and grief to drive the story instead of the typical American jump scares.

Red Eye (2005)

No snakes or ghosts are needed to make this flight terrifying.

Primarily set on board on an airliner, Red Eye follows hotel manager Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams), flying back home from her grandmother’s funeral. Due to bad weather, the flight is delayed. While waiting for her flight, Lisa meets the irresistible Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), and a romance begins to blossom.

As luck would have it, they’re seated together on the plane, but Lisa soon learns that this wasn’t a coincidence. Jackson hopes to assassinate the head of Homeland Security. To do that, he needs Lisa to reassign his hotel room. As insurance, Jackson has a hitman waiting to kill Lisa’s father if she doesn’t cooperate.

Red Eye is an airplane-set horror film filled with tension and classic suspense that only Wes Craven can pull off from start to finish. Tapping into our fears, the director crafts an intense psychological thriller with tight camera angles, ominous lighting, and tightly enclosed spaces, along with a menacing villain and a strong female lead.

Craven proved, once again, that he can scare us with Red Eye.

Resident Evil: Degeneration (2008)

airplane-set horror Resident Evil

Years after the outbreak in Raccoon City, a zombie attack brings chaos to Harvardville Airport as Resident Evil: Degeneration begins.

The outbreak begins when a survivor of the original incident unleashes a variant of the T-Virus, causing the plane to crash inside the airport. Raccoon City survivors Claire Redfield (Alyson Court) and Leon Kennedy (Paul Mercier) are once again thrown into chaos as they are needed to contain the contagion before it spreads.

Will Claire and Leon be able to terminate the virus before it’s Raccoon City all over again?

Not entirely set on an airplane, Resident Evil: Degeneration is relentlessly frightening and filled with non-stop action. Degeneration will satisfy fans of the franchise as the film is more faithful to the games than the live-action films. The motion-capture CG animation is well executed, making the film looks and feels like a 90-minute cut-scene from the games. The film has effective jump scares, a gripping storyline, and is definitely worth watching.

Final Destination (2000)

Death takes flight with Final Destination.

Final Destination follows Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) embarking on a trip to Paris with his senior class. Before takeoff, Alex experiences a premonition and sees the plane explode. Alex insists that everyone get off the plane, trying to warn them of the impending disaster.

In the chaos, seven people, including Alex, are forced off the plane. Moments later, they watch as it explodes. Alex and the other survivors have cheated death, but death is coming for them, and they will not escape their fate. One by one, the survivors soon begin to fall victim to the grim reaper because there is no escaping death.

Final Destination takes death to new heights. The film is packed full of unexpected twists and over-the-top death sequences. Who can forget that infamous bus scene? But it’s the film’s opening sequence that generates the most anxiety and excitement. Being both inventive and original, Final Destination is a staple in horror cinema and delivers perhaps the most frightening airplane sequence of all time.

If these films weren’t enough for you, check out these other airplane-set horror films: Flight of the Living Dead: Outbreak on a Plane, Flight:666, the Hitchcockian thriller Flightplan, and for what it’s worth, check out the opening sequences to Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare and Rings.

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Thrills and Chills: Ranking ‘Radio Silence’ Films from Bloody Brilliant to Just Bloody

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Radio Silence Films

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella are all filmmakers under the collective label called Radio Silence. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are the primary directors under that moniker while Villella produces.

They have gained popularity over the past 13 years and their films have become known as having a certain Radio Silence “signature.” They are bloody, usually contain monsters, and have breakneck action sequences. Their recent film Abigail exemplifies that signature and is perhaps their best film yet. They are currently working on a reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.

We thought we would go through the list of projects they have directed and rank them from high to low. None of the movies and shorts on this list are bad, they all have their merits. These rankings from top to bottom are just ones we felt showcased their talents the best.

We didn’t include movies they produced but didn’t direct.

#1. Abigail

An update to the second film on this list, Abagail is the natural progression of Radio Silence’s love of lockdown horror. It follows in pretty much the same footsteps of Ready or Not, but manages to go one better — make it about vampires.

Abigail

#2. Ready or Not

This film put Radio Silence on the map. While not as successful at the box office as some of their other films, Ready or Not proved that the team could step outside their limited anthology space and create a fun, thrilling, and bloody adventure-length film.

Ready or Not

#3. Scream (2022)

While Scream will always be a polarizing franchise, this prequel, sequel, reboot — however you want to label it showed just how much Radio Silence knew the source material. It wasn’t lazy or cash-grabby, just a good time with legendary characters we love and new ones who grew on us.

Scream (2022)

#4 Southbound (The Way Out)

Radio Silence tosses their found footage modus operandi for this anthology film. Responsible for the bookend stories, they create a terrifying world in their segment titled The Way Out, which involves strange floating beings and some sort of time loop. It’s kind of the first time we see their work without a shaky cam. If we were to rank this entire film, it would remain at this position on the list.

Southbound

#5. V/H/S (10/31/98)

The film that started it all for Radio Silence. Or should we say the segment that started it all. Even though this isn’t feature-length what they managed to do with the time they had was very good. Their chapter was titled 10/31/98, a found-footage short involving a group of friends who crash what they think is a staged exorcism only to learn not to assume things on Halloween night.

V/H/S

#6. Scream VI

Cranking up the action, moving to the big city and letting Ghostface use a shotgun, Scream VI turned the franchise on its head. Like their first one, this film played with canon and managed to win over a lot of fans in its direction, but alienated others for coloring too far outside the lines of Wes Craven’s beloved series. If any sequel was showing how the trope was going stale it was Scream VI, but it managed to squeeze some fresh blood out of this nearly three-decade mainstay.

Scream VI

#7. Devil’s Due

Fairly underrated, this, Radio Silence’s first feature-length film, is a sampler of things they took from V/H/S. It was filmed in an omnipresent found footage style, showcasing a form of possession, and features clueless men. Since this was their first bonafide major studio job it’s a wonderful touchstone to see how far they have come with their storytelling.

Devil’s Due

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The Original ‘Beetlejuice’ Sequel Had an Interesting Location

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beetlejuice in Hawaii Movie

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s sequels to hit movies weren’t as linear as they are today. It was more like “let’s re-do the situation but in a different location.” Remember Speed 2, or National Lampoon’s European Vacation? Even Aliens, as good as it is, follows a lot of the plot points of the original; people stuck on a ship, an android, a little girl in peril instead of a cat. So it makes sense that one of the most popular supernatural comedies of all time, Beetlejuice would follow the same pattern.

In 1991 Tim Burton was interested in doing a sequel to his 1988 original, it was called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian:

“The Deetz family moves to Hawaii to develop a resort. Construction begins, and it’s quickly discovered that the hotel will be sitting on top of an ancient burial ground. Beetlejuice comes in to save the day.”

Burton liked the script but wanted some re-writes so he asked then-hot screenwriter Daniel Waters who had just got done contributing to Heathers. He passed on the opportunity so producer David Geffen offered it to Troop Beverly Hills scribe Pamela Norris to no avail.

Eventually, Warner Bros. asked Kevin Smith to punch up Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, he scoffed at the idea, saying, “Didn’t we say all we needed to say in the first Beetlejuice? Must we go tropical?”

Nine years later the sequel was killed. The studio said Winona Ryder was now too old for the part and an entire re-cast needed to happen. But Burton never gave up, there were a lot of directions he wanted to take his characters, including a Disney crossover.

“We talked about lots of different things,” the director said in Entertainment Weekly. “That was early on when we were going, Beetlejuice and the Haunted MansionBeetlejuice Goes West, whatever. Lots of things came up.”

Fast-forward to 2011 when another script was pitched for a sequel. This time the writer of Burton’s Dark Shadows,  Seth Grahame-Smith was hired and he wanted to make sure the story wasn’t a cash-grabbing remake or reboot. Four years later, in 2015, a script was approved with both Ryder and Keaton saying they would return to their respective roles. In 2017 that script was revamped and then eventually shelved in 2019.

During the time the sequel script was being tossed around in Hollywood, in 2016 an artist named Alex Murillo posted what looked like one-sheets for a Beetlejuice sequel. Although they were fabricated and had no affiliation with Warner Bros. people thought they were real.

Perhaps the virality of the artwork sparked interest in a Beetlejuice sequel once again, and finally, it was confirmed in 2022 Beetlejuice 2 had a green light from a script written by Wednesday writers  Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The star of that series Jenna Ortega signed on to the new movie with filming starting in 2023. It was also confirmed that Danny Elfman would return to do the score.

Burton and Keaton agreed that the new film titled Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice wouldn’t rely on CGI or other other forms of technology. They wanted the film to feel “handmade.” The film wrapped in November 2023.

It’s been over three decades to come up with a sequel to Beetlejuice. Hopefully, since they said aloha to Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian there has been enough time and creativity to ensure Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice will not only honor the characters, but fans of the original.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice will open theatrically on September 6.

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New ‘The Watchers’ Trailer Adds More to the Mystery

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Although the trailer is almost double its original, there is still nothing we can glean from The Watchers other than a harbinger parrot who loves to say, “Try not to die.” But what do you expect this is a Shyamalan project, Ishana Night Shyamalan to be exact.

She is the daughter of twist-ending prince director M. Night Shyamalan who also has a movie coming out this year. And just like her father, Ishana is keeping everything mysterious in her movie trailer.

“You can’t see them, but they see everything,” is the tagline for this movie.

They tell us in the synopsis: “The film follows Mina, a 28-year-old artist, who gets stranded in an expansive, untouched forest in western Ireland. When Mina finds shelter, she unknowingly becomes trapped alongside three strangers who are watched and stalked by mysterious creatures each night.”

The Watchers opens theatrically on June 7.

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